Action movie icon Steven Seagal has built quite the resume during his many years in the industry. That body of work should warrant the opportunity for him to collaborate with other bad-ass veterans of the genre in Sly Stallone’s The Expendables franchise. Right?! While many agree the martial arts expert should be present in The Expendables universe, there is a reason why we have yet to see the white boy Hatcher make an appearance in the franchise.
According to Seagal himself, he has his reasons as to why he never jumped on the “bring all the famous action movie icons together and watch them be awesome” train. He explains those reasons, briefly, in an interview while discussing potential ideas for Under Siege 3.
Why have you never been in an Expendables film? I just didn’t like some of the people involved.
The cast is made up of so many people I guess you couldn’t like all of them. Life is too short to work with funny people.
Would you like to name any names? Of course not. There’s good and bad people everywhere and a lot of people in The Expendables I like too. So it’s okay.
Have you thought of assembling your own team and taking them on? That might happen.
Who would be on your dream action team? I like Jason Statham. I like Jet Li, people like that.
Would you have to be the leader though? No I don’t care, I don’t have any ego about that. I’m just a simple country boy.
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Under Siege was set on a boat, Under Siege 2 was on a train, if they made an Under Siege 3 where would it be set?I would set it in Russia.
It seems like Russia has been Hollywood’s default bad guy forever. I sorta think the opposite. I think that America and Russia should be great allies and great friends. And can be. What I want to do is write a movie, which I’ve sorta already done, where Russian special forces and American special forces work together to combat terrorism. The only way for us to prosper as a human race is for us to get along. There are hundreds of millions of people that want that.
Would it be on a boat or a train or would it be about something bigger than that? I don’t want to make it too big. I don’t want it to look like Die Hard 47 or something like that. I’d like to make it a bit more realistic if I can.
After your tour what films do you have coming up? I’m trying to do Under Siege 3, which is the plot that I told you. I’m trying to do some martial arts films in China. I have a lot of different scripts and ideas.
So Under Siege 3 will happen? Sure hope so.
While Seagal may not be a fan of Stallone’s successful franchise, he did admit he was intrigued by the idea of assembling his own team of legends to stand toe-to-toe with The Expendables though.
In THE EXPENDABLES 3, Barney (Stallone), Christmas (Statham) and the rest of the team comes face-to-face with Conrad Stonebanks (Gibson), who years ago co-founded The Expendables with Barney. Stonebanks subsequently became a ruthless arms trader and someone who Barney was forced to kill… or so he thought. Stonebanks, who eluded death once before, now is making it his mission to end The Expendables — but Barney has other plans. Barney decides that he has to fight old blood with new blood, and brings in a new era of Expendables team members, recruiting individuals who are younger, faster and more tech-savvy. The latest mission becomes a clash of classic old-school style versus high-tech expertise in the Expendables’ most personal battle yet.
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